Present. Perfect.
Far beyond the gleaming lives of popular Chinese live-streaming anchors, another world emerges of ordinary broadcasters conveying their not so ordinary struggles. Creating a unique visual world in her black and white compilation film, Shengze Zhu shows us a man suffering from a rare disease, a single mother working in a factory, and other lonesome and isolated heroes who pour their hearts into a hollow, virtual space, hoping to satisfy the craving for human connection that is sorely missing from their real lives.
Shengze Zhu (born in 1987, in China) is a documentary filmmaker and producer. Her directorial feature debut, Out of Focus (2014), premiered at Cinéma du Réel. Her second feature documentary, Another Year (2016), received the Best Film Award at Visions du Réel, and the Grand Prize at Montreal. Zhu co-founded the production company, Burn The Film, with director and visual artist, Yang Zhengfan, and has also served as producer for Yang's films.